The focus at MarketingSherpa Summit 2017 was inspirational stories of customer-first marketing, and so we mostly shared in person, live versions of the in-depth case studies we report on from your peers.

So in this quick-hitting session, my Summit co-host, Pamela Jesseau, and I shared ideas for improving your marketing from industry experts, your marketing peers and MarketingSherpa Award entrants who had outstanding ideas.

Sit back and watch the entire 30-minute video to get several different ideas. Or, if you’d like to jump ahead to a specific topic in a specific section, our copy editor Linda Johnson, put together these timestamp links for you.

I share some research from MarketingSherpa that shows why you can underperform if you only focus on best practices for email, direct marketing or whatever your marketing focus is, and why you and your marketing department should get deeply engaged throughout the business to ensure that all customer touchpoints are high value for the customer.

1:34 – Build a content army from unlikely sources within your own company

Sarah Schaale, Sr. Brand Manager, Lumens/Ydesign Group, explains that her company was unsuccessful in finding freelance marketing writers, so they pulled people from other departments within the company — Sales, Customer Service, Merchandising — who had writing skills (“writerly types”) and gave a stipend to them (a low budget way to handle this need). This decision created brand ambassadors.

3:13 – You can be either data-centric or customer-centric. When there is a conflict with the two, follow your heart.

In 2003, Joe McCambley, SVP Content Marketing, POP, worked for AOL. Even though many customers complained about pop-up ads, AOL kept using them — because the data showed short-term results. In the end, AOL lost its foothold in the marketplace. (Joe believes that a series of decisions like this caused the decline.)

5:10 – Think about every way that your brand touches a customer, perhaps beyond traditional channels, and how you can turn that into a very customer-first message

Instead of shutting down access to McDonald’s Wi-Fi for non-McDonald’s customers, it turned the situation into a marketing message to draw more customers in, according to Catharine Hays, Executive Director, The Future of Advertising Program at The Wharton School.

6:00 – How a vacation rentals company utilized the weather and current events in email marketing

During its seasonal downtime, Shannon Kinser, Marketing Director, Sun Realty, referenced a winter storm coming to the Northeast — where many of its customers live — with an email campaign featuring bright, sunny, warm scenery. Reservations and revenue increased.

6:58 – Don’t panic if you don’t have a clear value proposition right away

It can be frustrating to market a product that doesn’t have a unique value proposition. If you’re not a senior business leader, there will be limits on how much you can affect the exclusivity and appeal of your company’s or product’s value propositions. In that case, Brandon Stamschror, Senior Director, Solutions, MECLABS Institute, recommends that marketers focus on clarity and credibility to gain an advantage over competitors.

Annette Garaghty, Vice President Sales & Marketing, WUSTHOF, shares how this knife maker created “micro-influencers” by putting its product in the hands of the retail associates, giving them more credibility with the end consumer.

Ryan Phelan, Vice President, Marketing Insights, Adestra, says that a database of emails is the key that unlocks all the information about consumers. In this way, email addresses are more important than Social Security numbers. By combining that email address with third-party data, you can identify the consumer and better serve his or her needs.

Gary Jury, Supervisor, Digital Intelligence, CAA — winner of the MarketingSherpa/The Onion Headline Content — explains that being understood is more important than being clever. He also advises copywriters and marketers to be precise. Edit. Edit. Edit.

Matthew Indellicati, Associate Director of Strategy, M&C Saatchi Mobile, encourages you to figure out opportune times to engage your mobile app customer and put less emphasis on demographics and more emphasis on behaviors.

I share advice from Andrea Shaikin, former Director, Customer Experience & Engagement, Mr. Lube Canada — spend the time with your technology colleagues to learn how things working so you’re able to make smart decisions about what can and can’t get done. (My own diligent and hard-working IT colleague was in the audience and noticed the below meme in the slide deck.)

What can we learn from the history of email marketing? I take a trip on the wayback machine and look at one of MarketingSherpa’s first case studies — from 17 years ago. Phillips Publishing kept running the same email subject line. Why? Because it kept pulling orders!

Not the type of tactic that would still work today … or would it? Only way to find out is to test.

26:36 – While customers have many reasons to be satisfied, it takes fewer things to make them unsatisfied

I was flying Delta and had to switch airlines to make it to Summit on time. I was one of many people who were upset at the company. Sure, it had many perks— new airplanes, televisions, snacks — but there was only one problem; it couldn’t get me where I wanted to go. That example illustrates a key lesson from our research into why customers are satisfied (and unsatisfied) with companies.

Daniel Burstein, Senior Director of Editorial Content, MECLABS. Daniel oversees all content and marketing coming from the MarketingExperiments and MarketingSherpa brands while helping to shape the editorial direction for MECLABS – digging for actionable information while serving as an advocate for the audience. Daniel is also a speaker and moderator at live events and on webinars. Previously, he was the main writer powering MarketingExperiments publishing engine – from Web clinics to Research Journals to the blog. Prior to joining the team, Daniel was Vice President of MindPulse Communications – a boutique communications consultancy specializing in IT clients such as IBM, VMware, and BEA Systems. Daniel has 18 years of experience in copywriting, editing, internal communications, sales enablement and field marketing communications.